Let me offer some logic and my observations to explain my thinking. My 5%/95% estimation was intended more to illustrate my belief that the balance is heavily tilted to radiation and convection than to provide an exact figure. Now that I think about it a little more, I would say the fraction of heat coming from the fire through the floor is even lower – probably well under 0.5%

Consider the typical WFO floor. It has very low thermal conductivity – probably in the range of 0.6 to 1.1 W/m*K in the biscotto or bricks, but there are also air gaps – particularly in a brick floor, so the conductivity of the floor system is even lower. But let’s call it 1 W/m*K to be conservative.

Low carbon steel, like people are using for pizza, by comparison, is about 50. Let’s say we had a Neapolitan oven with a similar steel floor and we made the unrealistic assumption that 100% of the heat in the floor where the pie is baked comes from the coals through the steel. Our brick floor is only 2% as conductive, so at most 2% of the heat could be coming from the coals through the floor material. Aluminum’s conductivity is over 200 W/m*K, and it still would not deliver 100% of the floor heat, but if it did, our bricks would be down to 0.5%.

My observations seem to support this analysis. The floor directly under the coals will heat to north of 1200F, yet I can easily increase or decrease the temperature of the deck by +/- 150F (825F – 975F) in a matter of perhaps 30 minutes to an hour by simply changing the intensity of the flames. Changing the size of the coal pile has no such similar effect.

This afternoon, I used my leftover dough, from last night, to bake the pizza shown in the picture below. I heated my Piccolo oven (which was already hot from last night) with my torch for about 3 hours. Basically, I let the torch shoot only toward the dome for 3 hours while partially closing the oven's mouth with the door. I guess this proves, to an extent, dear Craig's point in reply #1956 above. There were no hot coals on the floor of my oven to heat it by conduction. Interesting!

Right before baking the pizza, the oven floor was a little shy of 800°F and the dome hotter than my IR gun could register, over 1200°F. The bake time was 112 seconds while the torch stayed in the oven, as shown in the picture below. I think the pizza could have baked better (when I use the torch) if the floor was about 900°F and the dome about 1100°. If I had used wood fire instead of propane torch, the results would have been much better. As you may have noticed, pizzas bake very differently, at least in my oven, when I use propane torch. Using fire wood in my oven yields superior bake results. Good day!

This afternoon, I used my leftover dough, from last night, to bake the pizza shown in the picture below. I heated my Piccolo oven (which was already hot from last night) with my torch for about 3 hours. Basically, I let the torch shoot only toward the dome for 3 hours while partially closing the oven's mouth with the door. I guess this proves, to an extent, dear Craig's point in reply #1956 above. There were no hot coals on the floor of my oven to heat it by conduction. Interesting!

Right before baking the pizza, the oven floor was a little shy of 800°F and the dome hotter than my IR gun could register, over 1200°F. The bake time was 112 seconds while the torch stayed in the oven, as shown in the picture below. I think the pizza could have baked better (when I use the torch) if the floor was about 900°F and the dome about 1100°. If I had used wood fire instead of propane torch, the results would have been much better. As you may have noticed, pizzas bake very differently, at least in my oven, when I use propane torch. Using fire wood in my oven yields superior bake results. Good day!

The first person ever to do this with a cactus burner perhaps?

I was wondering what the effect of using a modified IR propane heater might be?

Thank you for the tip on the oven and especially the sangak pointers. You are a true artisan in all you do. I respect that.

Do you have a brand and place to buy a torch? I have no idea where to begin on that one. Is it propane? Also if I heard you right you double door the opening. One in front of exhaust and one more at the opening of the dome. I can get another door from Mugnaini but if you have a better idea on the door I would love to hear it.

Thank you! The torch that I have uses propane gas, and it is the one dear Craig kindly recommended to me:

If you or anyone else buys one, please, be extra cautious how you use the torch. Misuse of the torch may result in serious bodily injury and/or property damage (including your oven). This torch is quite powerful (500,000 BTU); it is not a toy. Good luck!

I would like to share with you pictures of the pizzas that my 21-year-old sister prepared and baked for us—all by herself—last night. She has been baking cakes, breads, and pizzas since age 14. For the pizzas last night, she mixed and kneaded the dough by hand, using Caputo '00' Extra (see the 1st picture below) and fresh yeast. The dough was fermented at room temperature for a total of about 18 hours. (According to Caputo, the protein content for '00' Extra is 11% while the same for Caputo '00' Pizzeria is 12.50%. In addition, the Falling Number for Extra is 300-360, and for Pizzeria 340-360. At last, the "W" factor for Extra is 210-230 while the same for Pizzeria is 280-320.) She baked the pizzas in my Forno Piccolo, using propane gas instead of firewood. The pizzas would have baked much better if we had used wood instead of gas. Last night, for some reason I was having a hard time in maintaining a steady temperature on the dome and the floor. The oven behaved whimsically!

I truly enjoyed my sister's novel choice of toppings on the second pizza below: mozzarella di bufala, bamboo shoots, very little fresh garlic, Chiu Chow chili oil (added post-bake), and chives (added post-bake). The pizza definitely had an oriental character in terms of flavor. Good day!

For the past three weeks, I have been doing many different experiments in order to closely examine the tangible effects of refrigerated dough on baked pizzas. It seems to me that once a Neapolitan pizza dough is refrigerated—even for as short as 1 hour at 36°F and almost at any stage in the course of its fermentation—, the resulting baked pizza will likeky acquire a certain degree of heaviness, not necessarily in terms of digestibility, but in terms of texture. To be more particular, the texture of the baked pizza base and the crumb embodied in the cornicione acquires a certain plastic or elastic nature that often renders them overly gelatinous. Hence, per my experiments, the pizza base and crumb lose their textural buoyancy or lightness to a degree.

Of note is my yesterday's experiment. Below are the resulting pictures of the pizzas that were subject to this experiment. Here is the basic recipe and procedure that I particularly devised for this experiment:

Final Dough Ball Temperature before bake: 72°FDough Ball Weight: about 260 to 270 grams eachOven: Forno PiccoloFloor Temp.: about 800°FDome Temp.: about 1135°FBake Time: Under 50 seconds without any doming at all

Although the dough was properly fermented during the initial fermentation and gained proper maturation during the 1st part of the final fermentation, just 1 hour of subsequent dough refrigeration, as described above, produced a tangible result in the texture of my pizza base and crumb. Although they were very soft, they lost, to a considerable degree, their light texture, perhaps because of the excessive dough gelatinization effect that took place during the 1-hour dough refrigeration.

Unfortunately, the pictures of the pizzas baked with the unrefrigerated dough balls are not available for me to post below since I accidentally cleared my camera's memory. If they were available for you to see, you would have discerned a substantial difference in how they baked and looked in contrast to the pictures I posted below. Good day!